


What Remains

by sospes



Series: Familitas [4]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Feelings, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22604791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes
Summary: After, Yennefer watches Geralt grieve.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Familitas [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640197
Comments: 289
Kudos: 1523





	What Remains

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the warnings and the tags!
> 
> In my head, this takes place in the same universe as _[Familitas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22575592)_ , but knowledge of that fic isn't really necessary to understand this one.

The rumours of the White Wolf whisper throughout the continent. 

Yennefer always listens, of course. When a new song makes its rounds of the taverns and inns, she listens and sorts the truth from the exaggeration and flattery. When other mages gossip of the Witcher who struck down this monster or that beast, she listens, and files, and remembers. It’s academic interest, a lot of it—she finds it fascinating to track the progress of Geralt’s public image, the development of the legend that his bard has sung him into—but at the same time, it reassures her. After all, she might not be his lover anymore, might not twist inside with a carnality that she has rarely felt in her long life, but she will always be tied to him. 

Ah, Destiny. 

But now the rumours are changing. 

In a tavern, Yennefer hears a washerwoman mutter to her friend of the savagery, the bestiality of the white-haired Witcher who the local lord paid to dispose of a werewolf nest. On the roads, she hears a lordling speak sneeringly about the uncouth peasant with golden eyes who stomped dirt and guts all over his newly-laid marble floors. It’s not like these stories are new, because Geralt has always been savage and spectacularly uncaring about his own personal hygiene, but usually those whispers are drowned out by the heroism and glory and majesty of the White Wolf, Geralt of Rivia. 

It sits wrong in her gut. 

Yennefer goes to find Geralt, worry unspoken in her heart. She finds him on the road near Novigrad, riding his horse at a slow walk along the roughly-paved surface, and when she brings her white mare in line with Roach, he greets her with a curt nod. 

“Geralt,” she says. “It’s been a while.” 

“Yen,” he answers, and leaves it at that. 

Yennefer frowns. Something’s different – there’s a rigidity to his shoulders, a roughness in his expression, and yes, he’s always rough and he’s always rigid, but this is different. She’s known him long enough to know that for sure. “What is it?” she asks bluntly, after a moment of silence. 

He just grunts and digs his heels in. His horse puts on speed, and Yennefer has to snap her reins to match. 

“ _Geralt_ ,” she says. “There’s something wrong with you.”

“I’m fine,” he grinds out. 

“You’re clearly not,” Yennefer snaps back. 

“Leave it, Yen,” Geralt answers, angry, bitter. 

“You know me better than that,” Yennefer says flatly. 

Geralt’s nostrils flare, and he reins his horse to a standstill, turns sideways in the saddle to face her. “Yennefer,” he says, meeting her gaze for the first time. “Leave me the fuck alone.” 

Worry is blossoming and thorning in Yennefer’s chest. “Geralt,” she says, softer, but she doesn’t get a chance to elaborate because he spurs Roach on, pushes her to a gallop, runs away and leaves Yennefer in his dust. She sits there on her horse, puzzled, and feels coldness settle around her heart, heavy as lead. 

She finds Ciri next, always a girl in Yennefer’s memories but now a young woman with a bright laugh and a mane of blonde curls that bewitch every young man she comes across. They eat together, sharing delicacies across a small table next to a roaring fire somewhere in Temeria, and eventually, after a flagon of good wine, Yennefer broaches the topic. “Have you seen Geralt recently?”

Ciri shakes her head, the movement sending light glinting off the gemstones sparkling in her ears. “He’s been keeping away,” she says, and there’s a heaviness in her tone that Yennefer didn’t anticipate. “I think I remind him too much of…” She trails off, drinks deeply. “Well,” she says, loaded with significance. “You know.” 

“Know what?” 

Ciri blinks. “You don’t know?” she asks, disbelief threading through her voice, then leans forward, elbows on the table, hair falling around her face like a curtain. “Yen, how can you not know?”

“Know _what_?” Yennefer bites out. 

Ciri’s eyes shine bright, too bright. “Jaskier,” she says quietly, too quietly, and doesn’t elaborate. 

Frustration is eating at Yennefer’s fingers, her lips – but at the same time, she knows. She thinks, maybe, that she’s known from the moment she began. “Jaskier,” she repeats flatly, putting off the knowledge, delaying reality. “Yes, I shared a meal with him the last time I was in Oxenfurt, maybe six months ago. He’s as mutually besotted with Geralt as ever, and composing far more lewd verses than he used to. I think teaching suits him.” 

Ciri’s stare is blank. “He’s dead, Yen.” 

Yennefer forgets to breathe. “No.”

Grief twists its way through Ciri’s expression, and she reaches out across the table, takes Yennefer’s hands. 

“What happened?” Yennefer asks, voice hoarse. 

“A plague,” Ciri says, her voice thick. “Fever, choking, death. They called it the Scholars’ Bane. It killed… hundreds, I think, starting in the university and then spreading to the town before they found a cure.” Her voice breaks. “He was one of the first.” 

Yennefer feels sick. “When?” 

“A few months ago,” Ciri answers, then lets out a heavy breath. “It must have been just after you saw him last.”

It was raining when Yennefer left Oxenfurt, all those months ago, and Jaskier refused to come out from under the cloisters to see her to her horse. “Not likely,” he snorted, a cloak that Yennefer recognised as Geralt’s swathed around his shoulders. “You might have your magic witchery to keep you young and healthy for the next hundred years, but I’m very much human and I’ve already had one cold this winter.” Then he smiled at her, wide and beaming, and said, “Until next time.” 

Yennefer lets go of Ciri’s hand, and finishes her cup of wine in one go. 

After, she goes to Oxenfurt. 

The sun is bright and blazing overhead, glinting like the gemstones in Ciri’s ears, and Yennefer walks through the gravestones with the summer breeze soft in her hair. It’s quiet in here, muted, away from the chatter and bustle of the university, but Yennefer is alone among the fresh graves – and there are dozens of them, row on row. The Scholars’ Bane. Yennefer takes a long breath, lets it out, and finds the grave she’s looking for. It’s in a corner, tucked away under the spreading branches of a willow tree, shaded from the worst of the weather, and Yennefer kneels in the grass, reaches out, presses a hand to the name engraved in the stone. _Julian Alfred Pancratz._

“Jaskier,” she says, little more than a breath. “I’m sorry.” – and with a thought, with a wish, with a whisper of a memory, dandelions blossom in the earth around his grave. 

When the sun is slipping below the horizon, Yennefer rises, brushes her hands against her skirts, and leaves the graveyard. She stays in the university, though, following the circuitous route through the cloisters and corridors that leads to Jaskier’s rooms. They’re unlocked, as they always are because Jaskier has no sense of security or safety, and Yennefer steps inside, breathes in. It’s like nothing’s changed in here, nothing’s different, and she walks among Jaskier’s belongings, his clothes and books, the piles and piles of sheet music, the boots, the scents – and here and there, scattered among the detritus of Jaskier’s life, there’s a short-bladed silver knife, a tiny vial of black liquid, a shirt that’s far too big for Jaskier and a little bit bloodstained. 

“You must be Yennefer.” 

Yennefer turns. There’s a woman standing in the doorway, head cocked to one side, watching Yennefer intently. “And you are?” Yennefer asks. 

“My name’s Essi,” the woman answers. “Jaskier talked about you. Dark hair, violet eyes.” Sad amusement flashes in her expression. “Gorgeous tits.” 

Yennefer barks a laugh. “That sounds like him.” 

Essi smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “He left instructions that his rooms were to be left for Geralt,” she says, soft, pausing. “I don’t think he wanted anyone else to deal with his things. And it’s not like the university needs the space at the moment.” 

Jaskier’s lute is lying on a cedarwood table, the wood worn to a warm patina, the inlay a little battered after all those years on the road but still shining. There are four or five instruments scattered around the room, some of them expensive gifts, some impulsive purchases, but this is the one that the elf king gave him, Yennefer knows, and this is his favourite. She picks it up slowly, surprisingly light in her hand. 

“Geralt hasn’t been back since,” Essi says, still in the open doorway. “He hasn’t even seen his grave.” 

“I’m not surprised,” Yennefer says, studying the lute. She remembers Jaskier’s fingers on the strings in Kaer Morhen when Ciri was still young, bringing laughter to that bleak, dour fortress – and she remembers Geralt taking the lute from Jaskier’s drowsy grasp, putting it to one side and pulling him to his feet, saying with warmth in his voice, “You can’t sleep on Ciri’s floor, Jaskier”, and Jaskier mumbling into his neck, “I can if you’d just _let me_.” Yennefer takes a breath, looks up at Essi. “Can I borrow this?” 

Essi nods. “He said your name, at the end,” she says, so quiet Yennefer barely hears. “Yours, and Cirilla’s, and Geralt’s, of course. He said to tell you that it’s okay. Not to blame yourself.” There are tears in Essi’s eyes, and as she speaks they slip down her cheeks, catching in the lamplight like the pearl around her neck.

Yennefer takes in a shaking breath. “Thank you,” she says. 

Essi just nods, and watches her leave.

Yennefer finds Geralt in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. He’s midway through hacking a particularly nasty-looking hybrid monster to pieces, silver sword moving weightlessly in his hand, and she waits on the sidelines until he’s done, until it’s finished. “Geralt,” she says as he hefts the monster’s head into a sack, green blood dripping from his hands and his hair. “Look at me, Geralt.” 

Geralt looks up at her, expression closed, and then his golden eyes flick to the lute in her hand and it’s like all the light has been sucked out of his face. “Go away, Yen,” he says. 

Yennefer watches him as he ties the oozing bag to Roach’s saddle. “I’m sorry,” she says eventually. “I didn’t know.” 

Geralt’s shoulders stiffen, and he doesn’t respond. 

“You haven’t been back to Oxenfurt,” Yennefer says. 

“I’m not going back to Oxenfurt,” Geralt says shortly. 

“You have to,” Yennefer presses. “He left his rooms to you, Geralt. All his possessions, everything he had. It’s yours.” 

“I don’t want it.” 

“ _Geralt_ ,” Yennefer barks, and his hackles raise even higher. “You can’t ignore this.” 

Geralt doesn’t answer, just swings up into Roach’s saddle. 

Yennefer steps forward, grabs Roach’s reins out of his hands and holds the mare still. “He’s gone, Geralt,” she says, sharp, insistent. “Ignoring it won’t change that, and it definitely won’t bring him back.” 

“Don’t you think I know that?” Geralt snaps, suddenly animated, fire blazing in his eyes. “Don’t you think I _know_?” 

“I think you’re an emotionally stunted oaf,” Yennefer says flatly. “I think you’ve lost the man you loved and you have no idea how to cope.” 

“You have no idea,” Geralt spits. 

“Then _tell me_ ,” Yennefer spits right back. 

Geralt looks down at her for a long minute, green blood smeared across his cheek, claw marks wrenched through his armour. “I wasn’t there, Yen,” he says through gritted teeth, his face set in a rictus of pain that breaks Yennefer’s heart clean in two. “I was in some shithole village working for some shithead lord. I took a fucking contract for a fucking _striga_ , and by the time I heard about the plague it was _too late_.” He stops, breathing hard, and Roach wickers softly against Yennefer’s hand. “I rode for three days without stopping,” he says, bitter, broken, “but he was already dead by the time I got there. I saw his body. That was all.” 

The rawness of the grief in his mind drowns Yennefer’s heart in pain. “Geralt,” she says. “Geralt, you couldn’t have known.” 

“Jaskier died in pain and alone,” Geralt says flatly, darkly. “I didn’t save him. I failed him.” He wrenches the reins out of Yennefer’s nerveless fingers, turns Roach’s head, and gallops away into the trees without another word. 

Yennefer stands in the forest under the whispering of the trees, Jaskier’s lute in her hand. There are tears on her cheeks, but after a moment she takes a breath, follows the path that Geralt took with determination in her heart. She finds the inn that he’s staying at, and, when he’s left to go haul that hideous head to whatever customer paid for its death, she goes to his room. The lock is a matter of a thought, and she slips inside, sees his clothing, his armour, his sparse belongings scattered with just as much haphazard chaos as Jaskier’s. She pauses for a second, then carefully sets the lute down on the bed. 

She leaves before Geralt returns. 

Weeks later, Yennefer meets Geralt in Oxenfurt.

He stands at the entrance to the graveyard, shoulders hunched, Jaskier’s lute held so tight in his hand that Yennefer can hear the tension singing in the strings. She stands close to him, feeling the sting of autumn in the wind, but doesn’t touch him, doesn’t offer comfort. “He’s under the willow tree,” she says, after a moment. 

“I know,” Geralt says, his voice a rumble in the soles of her boots. 

Yennefer leans against the wall of the graveyard, pulling her cloak tight around her. 

“He asked me to stay,” Geralt says, not looking at her, his hand tightening and loosening around the neck of Jaskier’s lute. “That last time, before the striga. He asked me to stay with him, in bed. He said that it was cold, it was raining, and that I should stay with him.” 

There’s more, Yennefer knows, and she can see it offered to her in his mind. Jaskier, crows-feet deep around his eyes, grey silvering in his dark hair, eyes blue and laughing as he pulled Geralt back under the covers, as he kissed him, as he whispered between his lips, “Stay with me. Not just today. Not just for a week or a month at a time. _Stay_.” 

Geralt kissed him, hand running through his hair, and said, “After this. We’ll talk.” 

Jaskier smiled up at him, beautiful, shining, and murmured, “I love you.” 

And Yennefer sees Geralt kiss him once more, long, lingering, and get up and leave. 

“Geralt,” she says, soft, gentle, and takes the lute from his hand. “Go.” 

Geralt goes. 

She watches as he crosses the graveyard, walking slowly, carefully, picking his way through the graves until he reaches the willow tree, swaying in the autumn breeze. He stands there a long time, head bowed, hands lax and loose at his sides, and Yennefer runs her fingers slowly up and down the strings of Jaskier’s lute, listening to the soft hum it whispers into the air. As she watches, Geralt’s shoulders slump even further and he falls to his knees, his hands pressed to the dirt and the dandelions that still bloom around Jaskier’s grave, that will _always_ bloom around Jaskier’s grave. 

Geralt roars, guttural and voiceless. 

Jaskier’s rooms are still in their state of mess and chaos, dust gathering in the corners, a stack of books slowly teetering further and further towards the edge of the table they were left on. Yennefer adjusts the books absently, watching as Geralt prowls slowly around the tables and chairs, the bookcases and music stands, the mess and the rubbish and all the discarded objects that made up a life. 

The door to the bedroom is ajar, the neatly-made bed startlingly out of place among all this mayhem – and Geralt stands in the doorway, frozen. “It was here,” he says. “The last time I saw him.” 

“Before you left?” Yennefer asks. 

“After,” Geralt says flatly, and then, after a pause, “This is where I saw his body.” Silence sits over them for a long moment. “I left,” Geralt says. “I didn’t watch them bury him. I couldn’t.” He shakes his head, slow, painful. “Fuck, Yen, he was _human_ , I knew that, I knew I’d lose him, but I thought we’d have _more time_.” 

Yennefer closes her eyes, just for a moment. “Geralt,” she says. 

Geralt steps forward into the bedroom, his footsteps loud in the quiet, and he sits on the edge of Jaskier’s bed. His hand spreads out across the blankets, fingers long, calloused. “He’s gone,” he says, and Yennefer doesn’t think she’s ever heard him sound so lost. “Fuck, Yen, what am I going to _do?_ ” 

Yennefer steps forward, sits beside him on the bed that could have been his, too, presses her hand to his cheek, rests her forehead against his. “You remember him,” she says. “You remember him as he was.” – and just for a second, Yennefer swears it’s like Jaskier’s there with them, just out of sight, smelling of lavender oil and rosin, sweat and wine. She can practically see the smile in his eyes, hear the laugh on his lips. “That’s all you can do,” she says, and the illusion shatters and he’s gone once more. 

Geralt lets out a breath, long and low. 

Yennefer comes across Geralt in a tiny village in the mountains, years after. They sit together in the one-roomed building that passes for a tavern, sharing a meal, and when they part, Geralt flashes her a smile and says, “Until next time.” He mounts his horse and turns the mare’s head onto the path towards the foothills, setting off at a slow walk into the dawning day. He doesn’t carry much in his saddlebags, Yennefer knows, just his bedroll and his potions, his swords and his coin – and Jaskier’s lute, strapped securely to the back of his horse. Jaskier’s lute, the gift of an elf king, waxed and maintained and perfectly tuned, always ready to be picked up and played at a moment’s notice. 

Yennefer watches Geralt until he’s nothing more than a smear of dust on the horizon, and then she breathes, and goes.


End file.
